Jean-Christophe, vol 1, Romain Rolland [book club recommendations .txt] 📗

in the street. He could not help telling

him of his contempt for him. Next day the paper, without a spark of shame,

published an insulting paragraph about the servants of the Court, who even

when they are dismissed remain servants and are incapable of being free. A

few allusions to recent events left no room for doubt that Christophe was

meant.

 

*

 

When it became evident to everybody that Christophe had no single support,

there suddenly cropped up a host of enemies whose existence he had never

suspected. All those whom he had offended, directly or indirectly, either

by personal criticism or by attacking their ideas and taste, now took the

offensive and avenged themselves with interest. The general public whom

Christophe had tried to shake out of their apathy were quite pleased to see

the insolent young man, who had presumed to reform opinion and disturb the

rest of people of property, taken down a peg. Christophe was in the water.

Everybody did their best to duck him.

 

They did not come down upon him all at once. One tried first, to spy out

the land. Christophe made no response, and he struck more lustily. Others

followed, and then the whole gang of them. Some joined in the sport

simply for fun, like puppies who think it funny to leave their mark in

inappropriate places. They were the flying squadron of incompetent

journalists, who, knowing nothing, try to hide their ignorance by belauding

the victors and belaboring the vanquished. Others brought the weight of

their principles and they shouted like deaf people. Nothing was left of

anything when they had passed. They were the critics—with the criticism

which kills.

 

Fortunately for Christophe, he did not read the papers. A few devoted

friends took care to send him the most insulting. But he left them in a

heap on his desk and never thought of opening them. It was only towards

the end of it that his eyes were attracted by a great red mark round an

article. He read that his Lieder were like the roaring of a wild beast;

that his symphonies seemed to have come from a madhouse; that his art was

hysterical, his harmony spasmodic, as a change from the dryness of his

heart and the emptiness of his thought. The critic, who was well known,

ended with these words:

 

“Herr Krafft as a journalist has lately given astounding proof of his style

and taste, which roused irresistible merriment in musical circles. He was

then given the friendly advice rather to devote himself to composition. But

the latest products of his muse have shown that this advice, though

well-meant, was bad. Herr Krafft should certainly devote himself to

journalism.”

 

After reading the article, which prevented Christophe working the whole

morning, naturally he began to look for the other hostile papers, and

became utterly demoralized. But Louisa, who had a mania for moving

everything lying about, by way of “tidying up,” had already burned them. He

was irritated at first and then comforted, and he held out the last of the

papers to her, and said that she had better do the same with that.

 

Other rebuffs hurt him more. A quartette which he had sent in manuscript

to a well-known society at Frankfort was rejected unanimously and returned

without explanation. An overture which an orchestra at Cologne seemed

disposed to perform was returned after a month as unplayable. But the worst

of all was inflicted on him by an orchestral society in the town. The

Kapellmeister, H. Euphrat, its conductor, was quite a good musician, but

like many conductors, he had no curiosity of mind. He suffered (or rather

he carried to extremes) the laziness peculiar to his class, which consists

in going on and on investigating familiar works, while it shuns any really

new work like the plague. He was never tired of organizing Beethoven,

Mozart, or Schumann festivals: in conducting these works he had only to let

himself be carried along by the purring of the familiar rhythms. On the

other hand, contemporary music was intolerable to him. He dared not admit

it and pretended to be friendly towards young talent; in fact, whenever he

was brought a work built on the old lines—a sort of hotch-potch of works

that had been new fifty years before—he would receive it very well, and

would even produce it ostentatiously and force it upon the public. It

did not disturb either his effects or the way in which the public was

accustomed to be moved. On the other hand, he was filled with a mixture

of contempt and hatred for anything which threatened to disturb that

arrangement and put him to extra trouble. Contempt would predominate if the

innovator had no chance of emerging from obscurity. But if there were any

danger of his succeeding, then hatred would predominate—of course until

the moment when he had gained an established success.

 

Christophe was not yet in that position: far from it. And so he was much

surprised when he was informed, by indirect overtures, that Herr H. Euphrat

would be very glad to produce one of his compositions. It was all the more

unexpected as he knew that the Kapellmeister was an intimate friend of

Brahms and others whom he had maltreated in his criticisms. Being honest

himself, he credited his adversaries with the same generous feelings which

he would have had himself. He supposed that now that he was down they

wished to show him that they were above petty spite. He was touched by it.

He wrote effusively to Herr Euphrat and sent him a symphonic poem. The

conductor replied through his secretary coldly but politely, acknowledging

the receipt of his work, and adding that, in accordance with the rules of

the society, the symphony would be given out to the orchestra immediately

and put to the test of a general rehearsal before it could be accepted for

public hearing. A rule is a rule. Christophe had to bow to it, though it

was a pure formality which served to weed out the lucubrations of amateurs

which were sometimes a nuisance.

 

A few weeks later Christophe was told that his composition was to be

rehearsed. On principle everything was done privately and even the author

was not permitted to be present at the rehearsal. But by a generally agreed

indulgence the author was always admitted; only he did not show himself.

Everybody knew it and everybody pretended not to know it. On the appointed

day one of his friends brought Christophe to the hall, where he sat at the

back of a box. He was surprised to see that at this private rehearsal the

hall—at least the ground floor seats—were almost all filled; a crowd of

dilettante idlers and critics moved about and chattered to each other. The

orchestra had to ignore their presence.

 

They began with the Brahms Rhapsody for alto, chorus of male voices, and

orchestra on a fragment of the Harzreise im Winter of Goethe. Christophe,

who detested the majestic sentimentality of the work, thought that perhaps

the “Brahmins” had introduced it politely to avenge themselves by forcing

him to hear a composition of which he had written irreverently. The idea

made him laugh, and his good humour increased when after the Rhapsody

there came two other productions by known musicians whom he had taken to

task; there seemed to be no doubt about their intentions. And while he

could not help making a face at it he thought that after all it was quite

fair tactics; and, failing the music, he appreciated the joke. It even

amused him to applaud ironically with the audience, which made manifest its

enthusiasm for Brahms and his like.

 

At last it came to Christophe’s symphony. He saw from the way the orchestra

and the people in the hall were looking at his box that they were aware of

his presence. He hid himself. He waited with the catch at his heart which

every musician feels at the moment when the conductor’s wand is raised and

the waters of the music gather in silence before bursting their dam. He

had never yet heard his work played. How would the creatures of his dreams

live? How would their voices sound? He felt their roaring within him; and

he leaned over the abyss of sounds waiting fearfully for what should come

forth.

 

What did come forth was a nameless thing, a shapeless hotch-potch. Instead

of the bold columns which were to support the front of the building the

chords came crumbling down like a building in ruins; there was nothing to

be seen but the dust of mortar. For a moment Christophe was not quite sure

whether they were really playing his work. He cast back for the train, the

rhythm of his thoughts; he could not recognize it; it went on babbling

and hiccoughing like a drunken man clinging close to the wall, and he was

overcome with shame, as though he had himself been seen in that condition.

It was of no avail to think that he had not written such stuff; when an

idiotic interpreter destroys a man’s thoughts he has always a moment of

doubt when he asks himself in consternation if he is himself responsible

for it. The audience never asks such a question; the audience believes in

the interpreter, in the singers, in the orchestra whom they are accustomed

to hear as they believe in their newspaper; they cannot make a mistake; if

they say absurd things, it is the absurdity of the author. This audience

was the less inclined to doubt because it liked to believe. Christophe

tried to persuade himself that the Kapellmeister was aware of the hash

and would stop the orchestra and begin again. The instruments were not

playing together. The horn had missed his beat and had come in a bar too

late; he went on for a few minutes, and then stopped quietly to clean his

instrument. Certain passages for the oboe had absolutely disappeared.

It was impossible for the most skilled ear to pick up the thread of

the musical idea, or even to imagine that there was one. Fantastic

instrumentations, humoristic sallies became grotesque through the

coarseness of the execution. It was lamentably stupid, the work of an

idiot, of a joker who knew nothing of music. Christophe tore his hair. He

tried to interrupt, but the friend who was with him held him back, assuring

him that the Herr Kapellmeister must surely see the faults of the

execution and would put everything right—that Christophe must not show

himself and that if he made any remark it would have a very bad effect. He

made Christophe sit at the very back of the box. Christophe obeyed, but he

beat his head with his fists; and every fresh monstrosity drew from him a

groan of indignation and misery.

 

“The wretches! The wretches!…”

 

He groaned, and squeezed his hands tight to keep himself from crying out.

 

Now mingled with the wrong notes there came up to him the muttering of the

audience, who were beginning to be restless. At first it was only a tremor;

but soon Christophe was left without a doubt; they were laughing. The

musicians of the orchestra had given the signal; some of them did not

conceal their hilarity. The audience, certain then that the music was

laughable, rocked with laughter. This merriment became general; it

increased at the return of a very rhythmical motif which the double-basses

accentuated in a burlesque fashion. Only the Kapellmeister went on

through the uproar imperturbably beating time.

 

At last they reached the end (the best things come to an end). It was the

turn of the audience. They exploded with delight, an explosion which